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Tim Healys Chutney Spoon

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14 minutes ago, Loki said:

IDF absolutely have the capacity to bomb a hospital, but I think if they had done they'd claim it,

They did claim it, at least a close aide to Bibi did, then rolled back when it was clear hundreds of innocents died. Then fabricated evidence to suggest it was a faulty hamas rocket. 

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It's been somewhat of a culture shock to me how the British political and media discourse have been covering this, particularly right at the outset. I was expecting it from across the Atlantic but the magnitude and polarity of it so close to home took me by surprise, even if it some of it has reneged to being a lot more cautious in recent days. Not just Britain, but across wider Europe. I didn't think I'd ever feel the kind of disenfranchisement I've felt with the EU as I did when von der Leyen started sounding off about this.  

In Ireland pro-Palestine stances have always been much more de rigueur and symptomatic of our own historical repression. Even our centre-right leaders condemned both Hamas and expressed extreme caution and concern at the magnitude of the IDF response from the start. We've historically been vigilant of Netanyahu's regime overstepping international laws and being a grand-stage bully so seeing these views being conflated so strongly with anti-semitism have been eye opening. 

In very practical terms, condemning the Hamas atrocities whilst not picking 'Team West' - which should be satire but is terminology Biden's pretty much directly alluded to today -  and instead actually airing vigilance, context and caution to the cyclic history of bloodshed and oppression that precipitated these atrocities to begin with would seem to me to be the most humane, actionable stance as it speaks to prevention rather than reaction. Prevention is possible, reaction is inevitable.

Pissing in the wind, as they say. 

Edited by Gay as FOOK
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53 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

It's never been about religion. Religion has only ever been a pretext for this entire fucking mess. 

While Religion has been used as a pretext here, as in many conflicts, in my opinion to state "its never been about religion" is just as massive an oversimplification of a long and extensive history of conflict in the region as Ricks point is.

Edited by Tommy!
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I am very very confused

 

So now it seems there are claims that the missile did minimal damage in the car park . These lads are normally pretty reputable and dont have a dog in the fight so to speak. At least as i am aware. 
 

We are truly in the Disinformation age. 

 

. this 

Edited by Browser Brady
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11 minutes ago, Tommy! said:

While Religion has been used as a pretext here, as in many conflicts, in my opinion to state "its never been about religion" is just as massive an oversimplification of a long and extensive history of conflict in the region as Ricks point is.

I don't believe it is, because the complexities of this situation stem from so many other sources. Endemic racism against people of colour and their rights to live on the lands they inhabited, historic Western racism against Jews, Western guilt over letting (at best) or enabling (at worst) around six million Jews be murdered on their watch, Israel being used as a proxy for Western geopolitical power and influence over the Middle East (essentially imperialism), these are all present, and take precedence, as far as I'm concerned.

The statement "it's about religion" implies that this was the original cause. It wasn't. It's been used, retroactively, as a vehicle for the antipathy each side feels for each other. The Mizrahi Jews had lived in the Middle East for centuries; they couldn't have done that if they'd always been in conflict with the mostly-Muslim communities that lived there. There are Palestinian Jews, and Israeli Arab Muslims/Christians. 

The way the Ashkhenazi-dominated Israeli establishment treats its own - the Mizrahi, the Ethiopian Beta Israel, and the Sephardi - speaks to how it's most likely not about religion; if they can treat their fellow Jews like that, then clearly religion is not the dividing line.

It's like trying to claim that Ireland was about religion. 

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14 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

It's like trying to claim that Ireland was about religion. 

It was, it wasn't the sole factor but it was a factor and any attempt to boil issues like the middle east to one single root cause and factor is, in my opinion, short sighted.

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2 minutes ago, Tommy! said:

Which isn't about religion?

I'll be honest I stopped reading there.

You are aware that Jews are also an ethnicity, and that Jews being religious or non-practising was never a barrier to the discrimination and hatred levelled against them?

1 minute ago, Tommy! said:

It was, it wasn't the sole factor but it was a factor and any attempt to boil issues like the middle east to one single root cause and factor is, in my opinion, short sighted.

I literally gave you several factors, but hey - you "stopped reading there".

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Just now, Tommy! said:

Just admit religion is involved, because it clearly is, and let it go.

I didn't say it wasn't involved, I said it "wasn't because of religion", I said it was a pretext, so no.

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1 hour ago, Carbomb said:

It's never been about religion. Religion has only ever been a pretext for this entire fucking mess

You said that, right there. That clearly implies you don't think Religion was a factor so don't act the bollocks and back track now.

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11 minutes ago, Tommy! said:

It was, it wasn't the sole factor but it was a factor and any attempt to boil issues like the middle east to one single root cause and factor is, in my opinion, short sighted.

To me the language is contradictory. Saying something is about religion isn't the same as saying religion is a factor in something. It's a factor, sure, but saying it's about religion is giving it way too much credit. 

It's obviously been given great historical gravitas but the troubles were only about religion insofar as it was the crest on the other team who you wanted to boot off the pitch's jersey. A cultural trinket used for division, oftentimes egged on by the British state who couldn't give a fuck about anyone there either way. 

There's not many murals in Northern Ireland that go on about how transubstantiation is a really fucking necro concept, or how protestant churches look really boring on the inside. It's because it doesn't really fucking matter, most people didn't practice it properly anyway, and when left alone without being coerced and pitted against one another a protestant and a catholic will usually just go to the pub together. 

Edited by Gay as FOOK
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